WAR SCENES 

I SHALL 
NEVER FORGET 



CARITA SPENCER 




Class L_ 

Book 

Copyright}^^- 



CQESRIGHT DEPOSm 




War at Night 



WAR SCENES 

I SHALL NEVER FORGET 

BY 

CARITA SPENCER 



^ 



THIRD EDITION 



1917 

PUBLISHED BT 

CARITA SPENCER 

10 EAST 68th ST. 
NEW YORK 

PRICE FIFTY CENTS 






COPYBIGHT, 1916, 
BY 

CARITA SPENCER 



4'^ V 



SEP 10 1917 



All money received from the sale of this hooh {50 cents 

per copy) is devoted to War Relief. No 

royalties or other reservations. 

©GI,A470966 



FOREWORD 

The scenes and occurrences which are 
recorded in these pages made such a deep 
impression upon me and have remained so 
vivid that I hope the recital of them may be 
found interesting to others. 

My sole purpose in publishing this book 
is to obtain funds for war relief. Every 
penny of the proceeds from its sale will be 
devoted to that object. 

The reader will note that casual refer- 
ence without mention of names is made to 
a number of individuals who are directing 
relief work with efficiency and devotion. 
These are only a few of the many I had 
the privilege of meeting, and whose methods 
of work I studied. If any one is interested 
in sending assistance to a particular class 



Foreword 

of war sufferers suggested by the reading 
of these sketches, he or she may communi- 
cate with me at 10 East 58th Street, New 
York City. I shall take pleasure in giving 
the names and addresses of those on the 
other side of the water most responsible to 
act as distributors of such generosity. 

Caeita Spencer. 
New York, 1917. 



WAR SCENES I SHALL 
NEVER FORGET 



Paris, April, 1916. 
'"La Legation de Belgique a Vhon- 
neur de faire connaitre a Miss Spencer 
que Sa Majeste la Eeine la recevra 
Vendredi prochain, 28 avril, a La 
Panne, a 2 heures et demie. Miss 
Spencer est price de vouloir bien pre- 
venir La Legation, du lieu et de Vheure 
ou on pourrait la faire prendre a Dun- 
kerque ou a Calais/* 

Foe six weeks I had wondered where and 
how the door to the war zone would open, 
and here at last came the answer. "The 
Belgian Legation has the honor to inform 



6 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

Miss Spencer that Her Majesty, the Queen, 
will receive her on Friday at La Panne at 
half past two." My only anxiety was to 
be the decision whether the motor should 
be sent for me to Calais or to Dunkerque. 
At last I could reply to the ingenuous sug- 
gestions from home that, being in the land 
of war, why didn't I see something of mili- 
tary activity? Just as if going to the front 
was like walking down Fifth Avenue, and 
I could arrive by placing one foot after the 
other. It was midnight when the letter 
came, too late to do anything until the mor- 
row, when I must find the way to break all 
rules for civilians and get out of Paris in 
three hours instead of eight days. 

My official invitation was certainly a won- 
derful gate-opener. Legations, embassy 
and war office armed me with the necessary 
papers in less time than it usually took to 
reach the sub-clerk in the commissaire's 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 7 

office. Dressed in my khaki suit and my 
little brown hat with the lam-el leaves, — 
funny little hat, since become famous be- 
cause so many officers thought I wore the 
leaves as a presage of victory in honor of 
the Allies, — with my small handbag, heavy 
coat and an umbrella, I reached the Gare 
St. Lazare with twenty minutes to spare. 
Ahead of me were two English officers, shiny 
and polished from head to foot, with their 
elaborate hand luggage all neatly marked. 
One might think they were running down 
for a week-end at the Casino. On all sides 
crowded sky-blue-coated poilus, the faded 
dull looking sky-blue which blends into the 
horizon and helps to hide the French soldier 
from the keen-sighted Bosch. 

Have you ever stood by the gate to the 
trains and watched the men come up to go 
back to the front? Some come slowly, 
slouching along in their stiff boots under 



8 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

the weight of their heavy knapsacks and 
equipment, tired-eyed but determined. 
Others come running up in twos and threes, 
cheerful and carefree. Others come with 
their wives and children, their mothers, their 
sweethearts ; and these do not talk, unless it 
be the tiny tots, too small to know what it 
is all about. Nor do they weep. They just 
walk up to the gate, kiss him good-by and 
stand aside, and look as long as their eyes 
can follow him. Sometimes he turns back, 
but not often. I watched a while, then I too 
went through, showing my papers to several 
inquisitive officials in succession. 

Everything was quite like ordinary times 

until we passed E , where we lost the 

last of the civilians on the train except my- 
self. My compartment was quite empty, 
and as I stuck my head into the corridor it 
seemed as if the rest of the car were also 
empty. But no, there was a turkey gobbler 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 9 

in a wooden cage, and in a moment a French 
officer bending over him with a cup of water. 
It seemed the gobbler, poor innocent bird, 
was on his way to make gay an officer's mess. 
Soon we came to what still remains one 
of the most impressive sights of my trip, the 
miles of English reserve camp. Sand dunes, 
setting sun and distant sea, and tents and 
tents, and barracks and tents, and men in 
khaki never ending! Those bright, happy, 
healthy faces! Why, as the train crawled 
through them, so close I could shake hands 
out of the window, I fairly thrilled with the 
conviction that they could never be beaten. 
I wanted to shout at them : "Boys, I'm from 
over the water too, God bless you all!" But 
it choked in my thi'oat, for they came from 
Canada and Australia and New Zealand to 
give their lives for a principle, while I came 
from the land "too proud to fight." (To- 
day, Aug., 1917, thank God, proudest of 
all to fight. 



10 War Scenes I Shall Neve?* Forget 

There were the shooting ranges and the 
bayonet targets, burlaps the size of a man's 
torso stuffed with straw, hanging on a 
clothesline in a row. The boys stand off a 
hundred yards and with fixed bayonets 
charge the bursting burlap. But now, at 
sunset, they are sitting around in groups 
or playing games, waiting for their evening 
meal. They have not faced fire yet, but their 
turn is coming and they are keen for it. 

The officer and the turkey descended at 
Boulogne and darkness closed down about 
the same time. There was only a shaded 
night lamp in the car, and the lonesomeness 
of the unknown began to take hold of me. 
The train crawled on about as fast as a 
horse would jog. I was hungry, as with 
civilian-like lack of forethought I had pro- 
vided myself with no lunch or dinner. I sat 
close to the window, looking for the lights 
of Calais which never came. The train 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 11 

stopped and a kindly conductor with a white 
badge on his arm, which shows that he is 
mobilized, helped me to stmnble out in the 
dark. There had been a "Zep" alarm, and 
not a single light was visible in the overcast 
night. I pushed along with groups of 
soldiers into the station, where, in an inner 
room, an officer sat at a small table with a 
small shaded safety lamp and examined 
passports. He was duly suspicious of me un- 
til I showed him the Legation paper. Stum- 
bling and groping like the blind man in 
Blind Man's Buff, I was finally rescued by 
a small boy who piloted me across the bridge 

to a door which he said was the G hotel. 

They refused to give me food because not 
even a candle was permitted. In the dark 
I went to bed. 

Early next morning I looked from the 
window on an animated square. Tommies, 
Tommies everywhere. Was it England after 



12 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

all instead of France? The Belgian reforme 
who will carry a limp to his dying day as 
his ever-present memory of the great war, 
and who acted as my chamberman, could not 
do enough for me when he heard that I was 
going to see his Queen. He spoke of her 
as of the dearest loved member of his fam- 
ily. She was a real Queen, he said. She 
loved and cared for the poor and suffering. 
He had even seen her once and she had 
smiled at him when he wore his uniform with 
his croicc de guerre. 

The palace motor came promptly at 12 :30 
and into it I got with my little bag, won- 
dering whether I was going into Belgium 
to remain two hours, two days or two weeks. 
I noticed that the car had seen service. The 
glass was cracked even where protected 
by wire netting and the upholstering was 
threadbare in spots, but there was nothing 
the matter with the engine, and we whizzed 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 13 

along at a goodly pace. And now began 
what I call the saluting habit. All the two 
weeks that I was on Belgian soil I was of 
course never unattended, and if any passing 
soldier did not salute the officer at my side 
or the official motor in which I rode, I was 
conscious of an extraordinary omission. 

We passed in and out of towns with 
guards at attention. Even at the frontier 
we were not stopped. The country was flat 
and the roads fearfully dusty. The heavy 
motor lorries and trucks which were con- 
stantly traveling with supplies from the base 
to the front interested me greatly, as they 
were the first I had seen in action. They 
came in groups of three to thirty, and the 
boys on the drivers' seats were so caked with 
dust I could hardly distinguish their fea- 
tures. My official motor carried a special 
horn which cleared the road of man and 
beast. The fields on all sides were tilled. I 



14 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

wondered who the workers were, when what 
do you think I saw? Forty children in a 
row, boys and girls, all ages, from the little 
tot to the boy who would next year be in 
the army, each with a hoe. In front of them 
stood an old man who beat time with a stick 
while the children plied the hoe, and I war- 
rant they had a happy time doing it. 

At last I knew we must be nearing La 
Panne, for soldiers became more numerous. 
There is always one division of the Belgian 
Army en repos at La Panne. The motor 
made several sharp turns, and as long as I 
live I shall never forget the scene. Warm 
sunshine, a sandy beach over an eighth of 
a mile wide — small breakers — a line of 
brightly colored seaside houses and villas — 
little sloops on the sea and warships in the 
distance — cavalry manoeuvering on the 
sands — the dunes at either end and behind — 
neat white veiled nurses and brightly clad 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 15 

convalescent soldiers on the walk and in the 
sands — the distant booming of big guns, 
probably English — and the nearer sounds of 
practice rifle and machine gun firing. 

In a small villa I met the Queen, pretty, 
charming and gracious, with wonderful eyes 
that seemed to look straight through me and 
beyond. We talked for quite a long time 
and she asked me what would interest me 
most to see in the little corner of Belgian 
Belgium. I replied that I should like to 
see everything that was being done in a con- 
structive way for the soldiers, civilians, chil- 
dren. With the promise that my wish would 
be gratified I took my leave and was then 
escorted to the villa of the famous Dr. De- 
page, where I remained for a week as his 
guest. The hospital is a wonder of excel- 
lence in every way. Charming ladies effi- 
ciently shoulder the burdens of the trained 



16 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

nurse, and they and doctors work hours on 
end when the wounded come in crowds from 
the nearby trenches. 

At sunset descended an English aeroplane 
on the beach. In a few minutes it was sur- 
rounded by a couple of hundred men in 
khaki, just as if they had sprung out of the 
ground. Then off it went, gracefully dip- 
ping in a low sweeping curve in front of the 
"palace," then soaring high as it struck out 
to sea. Then the beach guard changed, and 
suddenly over the front only a few miles 
away appeared a Belgian plane with Ger- 
man shrapnel bursting in little black puffs 
around it. I went with Dr. Depage to see 
the wounded arriving in the ambulances, and 
I took a thirty second peep at a leg opera- 
tion in the doing. At dinner — a very frugal 
but good one — we talked of everything ex- 
cept war. And this was my first day at the 
front. 




Belgian Cavalry on the Sands at La Panne 



II 

Trenches La Panne, May, 1916. 
Seven o'clock in the morning and I had 
just returned from the trenches, fairly well- 
behaved trenches, but real ones nevertheless, 
for several German bullets had sought us 
as a target in the early morning mist. It 
was all unreal, for I saw nothing. Yet I 
had to believe it, for I heard. • 

Thanks to the courtesy of a gallant staff 
captain and a charming gray-haired general, 
I made this unique expedition. The captain 
and I started before daylight in the cold of 
a gray morning and rode to the trenches in 
a comfortable limousine. The fields about 
were desolate, even the trees destroyed. 
Here and there a heap of stones, the remains 
of a thrifty farm, sheltered a small company 

17 



18 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

of soldiers. The roads were unspeakable, 
so deep the holes and ruts. We passed 

through P . There were still a few walls 

standing, and there we picked up a piece of 
marble to make me a paper weight. I knew 
the Germans were not far off, for the can- 
nonading was continuous about three miles 
down on our right. But for all I could see 
I might as well have been on the western 
prairies. 

"What in the world is straw fixed up that 
way for?" I asked. 

"That is a curtain of straw which stretches 
for miles along the road behind the trenches 
to hide our motors from the enemy. A motor 
means an officer, and if they could see us we 
would not be here long." 

We stopped behind the straw screen and 
got out, crawling under it into a communi- 
cation trench. I had better call them ram- 
parts, for this district, you know, was the 



ETM 


c^^^^^B^^B 


H^kS 




1^^^^ 


^^k^^^^^^^^^^^^^^l 


4*».* > .-. ». m" «f - I'^MJMiiiKm 


P'l^^Sh- a^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H 



In the Trenches on the Yser 




Between the Main and Front Line Trenches 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 19 

inundated land of the Yser. One hundred 
yards in this winding alley of concrete and 
sand-bag wall and we reached the main 
trench, a solid substantial rampart of con- 
crete, sand-bags and earth, with the grass 
growing on the side facing the enemy. Here 
the soldiers on duty lived in their little cub- 
by-holes in the wall. They slept in groups of 
fours, stretched out on clean straw with their 
guns beside them ready for sudden call. 
And, if you please, do not suppose that these 
domiciles went unnamed or unadorned. By 
the irony of fate the first wooden door we 
came to was thus inscribed, all in French, 
of course : 

Villa "Ne Ten Fais Pas''! 
War with Notes! 
Wilson-Bethman! 

Hurry up, you Neutrals! 
How common-place trench life has be- 
come after these two long years of habit! 



20 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

Nowadays men do not go to the office and 
the shop. They go up to the trenches for 
dail}^ duties. These trenches we were in 
were main-line, where the enemy was not 
supposed to penetrate unless rude enough 
actually to break through. So the soldiers 
portioned off the rough earth beside the 
board walk that ran parallel to the rampart, 
and first they had a little vegetable garden, 
and next to it for beauty's sake a little flower 
garden, and next to that a little graveyard, 
and then the succession repeated. Five hun- 
dred yards beyond the main lines, across the 
inundated fields streaked with barbed wire 
sticking up out of the water, was the front 
line trench, a rougher rampart, mostly of 
earth, and when it rained, oh mud! Under 
cover of darkness the boys went out and 
returned, walking across a rickety board 
walk. 

Bang! Bang! Bang! Those were sharp 







0) 



o 



-§ 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 21 

shots and sounded like business. They might 
become more personal than the steady heavy 
roar of guns sending up their smoke at 

D on our right. We dared not tarry, 

for the sun was coming up. 

The Major of the line was waiting to 
greet us and offered us early morning re- 
freshment in his dug-out. His dug-out was 
a cozy, comfy little place, two boarded rooms 
in the rampart wall, high enough to stand 
up in, and furnished with a cot and blankets 
and some chairs and a stove and a mirror 
and some pictures, and, yes, a latch on the 
door to enter by. If I had had no ears it 
would have been difficult to persuade me that 
there were men not far off who, without per- 
sonal animosity, would gladly have landed 
a shell in our midst. 

The war as I glimpsed it in the many 
phases I was able at least to touch upon 
always gave me the impression of running 



22 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

up against a blank wall of contradiction. To 
people who live week in and week out in the 
range of shell fire, life and death take on a 
new relationship. Death may come at any 
moment, and yet meantime life must be lived, 
and one can't live all the time at high pres- 
sure. Perhaps no more vivid instance of this 
came to me than when I was sitting in bar- 
racks near F as the guest of that won- 
derful woman, Mrs. I T . Up with 

the dawn, she and her fellow worker slaved 
without intermission, caring for the poor 

civilians of F . They taught and fed 

the kiddies, dispensed medical and even sur- 
gical help, going out across the fields through 
the darkness at any call; gave out food and 
clothing to the women who came daily to 
claim their portion. Then, the day's hard 
work over, came dinner, at which an officer 
or two, French, Belgian, English, even 
American, might drop in, and afterwards 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 23 

my hostess would sit at the piano and sing 
Debussy with a voice of beauty and volume, 
while all the time the guns would thunder, 
the aeros might be overhead, and men were 
being killed on all sides. One's mind hardly 
grasped it, but one's emotions ran high. 



Ill 



, May, 1916. 



P was close by the famous Ypres 

and had the honor at the moment of being 
a bombarded town. Hardly a day passed 
that shells did not fall here in greater or less 
quantity. Have you ever been in a bom- 
barded town? Gloom? You could cut it 
with a knife, and yet I could not make out 
why the gloom was so oppressive. The 
streets were full of soldiers — Tommies, Ca- 
nadians, Australians — bustling about, cheer- 
fully whistling, talking in groups or going 
about their individual duties. Peasant 
women were in evidence too, and the little 
shops had window displays; but oh the 
gloom! Many of the houses were destroyed 

24 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 25 

and in some sections there was no such thing 
as a pane of glass left. The noise of the 
guns was almost constant. 

I was staying in a hospital with the Coun- 
tess V , a front line ambulance in this 

section where fighting had been heavy. It 
was an old red brick building, probably the 

home of one of P 's wealthier residents. 

The high-ceilinged rooms were bare of fur- 
niture and in its place were rows of cheap 
iron cots with a wounded man in each. The 
Countess was one of those charming, dainty 
feminine creatures with a will of iron and 
a courage beyond words. The story of her 
life during the first invasion of Belgium and 
her escape from German territory was thrill- 
ing. She came to P , where she cared 

not only for this house full of wounded sol- 
diers, but worked and planned with others 
the support and care of civilian wounded, 
men, women and little children, and of hun- 



26 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

dreds of little orphan boys and girls. My 
room was on the ground floor. It had half 
a window pane, one boarded-up window and 
some heavy blankets to hang up at night to 
hide the candle light from a prying aero. I 
simply can't describe the gloom. The Coun- 
tess said that when she felt that she could 
not go on another minute, she just hunted 
out the box her husband had sent her when 
she got word to him that she had no more 
clothes and to send on some of her old ones. 
The box contained three filmy negligees, the 
ones he loved her best in. She got them out 
and spread them about the dismal room, and 
then she stood in the middle and laughed and 
cried until she felt better. 

I sat outside on a bench one morning talk- 
ing to a young Belgian officer who was so 
badly wounded the first year of the war that 
he will probably never go back to the front. 
We were talking of beautiful things, music, 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 27 

painting and such like. One of the ambu- 
lances drove in. He paid no attention, it 
was such a common occurrence, but I was 
all eyes. You have seen the ice wagon drip- 
ping on a warm day? The ambulance was 
dripping too, but the drops were red! One 
stretcher was lifted out and an orderly stand- 
ing by raised the cover at one end. I saw 
something that had once been a head with 
a human face on it. The next stretcher con- 
tained a man wounded in the legs. One of 
the nurses spoke to him and he tried to smile. 
The next was carried without comment to 
the tiny stone hut in the fast-growing little 
graveyard just back of the house. These 
kind folk would find time to bury him and 
send a picture of his grave with a few words 
of how bravely he had died, together with 
the number on the chain at his wrist, to 
Headquarters to be forwarded to his fam- 
ily. And he was a cook who had never held a 



28 War Scenes I Sludl Never Forget 

gun or seen an enemy. So they emptied 
the ambulance to the number of six and then 
they turned the hose on it and started it back 
for its next load. And may I tell j^ou how 
the ever-present contrast came in here? Up- 
stairs in the convalescent ward a boy, to 
cheer his comrades, was banging the j oiliest 
kind of music on an old tin piano, impa- 
tiently waiting the day when he would be 
declared well enough to go back to be 
wounded again. 




o 




O 



O 



IV 



-, May, 1916. 



One of the big hospital clearing stations 
for this active point in the English lines was 

at P . It was a great big gloomy old 

barracks of a building with never a window 
pane in its many windows. After an active 
night, lines of ambulances would arrive and 
disburden at its doors. Generally before 
twenty-four hours had passed the arrivals of 
that day must be moved on to the beautiful 
new barracks hospital near the station or 
direct into the hospital train, which waited 
until it was full and then started out for 
the rear. 

I went with the young wounded Belgian 
officer to visit this new English barracks 



80 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

hospital. It was a model. The head nurse, 
neat and trim as though she had stepped out 
from a private case, showed us around. The 
operating room was perfect, three operations 
going on at once. I stopped to watch the 
extraction of a bullet. Such sights were 
always horrible, but the consciousness that 
the man was temporarily out of pain under 
the ansesthetic made it much easier than 
looking on when the dressings were done. 
We saw the kitchens, the storerooms, the 
regular wards where the men lay in neat 
white cots, and finally the receiving ward. 
That was not nice. Some seventy-fi:ve 
wounded had just arrived. Most of them 
were still in their uniforms, lying on cots 
covered with blankets, or on the very stretch- 
ers that brought them. The only sounds in 
the long narrow room were muffled groans, 
an occasional curse, and now and then a 
louder cry from some poor soul, even though 




> 
G 



en 
O 

K 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 31 

he was being handled by nurse and surgeon 
as gently as possible. As we entered the 
door it seemed as if every eye was turned in 
our direction, and every eye was full of pain, 
almost the kind of look you would see come 
from a silent suffering animal. At my very 
feet lay a six-foot stalwart Englishman, his 
clothes caked with mud, his beard and hair 
a tangled mat. He was doing his best to 
endure, but in spite of himself his head and 
arms thrashed about, he gripped the sides 
of the stretcher, he jerked the blanket which 
covered him and disclosed one leg from the 
hip down, a mangled mass of clothes, blood 
and flesh. Another, a boy of about eighteen, 
sat on the edge of his cot with a face like 
chalk and his breath coming in quick gasps, 
while a doctor was hurriedly stuffing a great, 
round, red hole in his back with what seemed 
like yards of the gauze packing the women 
in America are making. Another one sat 



32 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

propped against pillows, his head and face 
completely bandaged, with two rubber tubes 
sticking out of the bandage. I felt so sick 
I wondered whether I could stick it out. For 
some unexplainable reason my mind shifted 
back home to a conversation I had overheard 
not many weeks before. Two of my friends 
were discussing the merits of a couple of 
gowns. One gown could be had for $300, 
but the other was a bit prettier, and, after 
all, it only cost $50 more. I suppose such 
things have to be, but I do not believe they 
would be quite so often, if more of us could 
visit in fact or in imagination the scenes of 
Europe to-day. It made me think of the 
phrase I had recently heard spoken by an 
American. "And so it goes! We spend 
money for things we really don't need and 
eat far too much food — and they go on fight- 
ing for everything we hold dear. Oh, if we 



( War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 33 

could only show the people at home all that 
we have seen — and what it means!" 

Of course there must always be poverty, 
and there must always be suffering, but the 
ordinary every-day physical suffering is not 
that of the strong and well, who, for the 
sake of a principle and with almost super- 
human self-sacrifice, go forth to be mutilated 
or killed. Nor is it the suffering of those 
who, through interminable days of anxiety 
and oppression, cheerfully face the drudgery 
of war-life behind the lines, again with that 
supreme sense of sacrifice of themselves to 
the good of the state and to the principle of 
what they believe is justice. 

The young Belgian saw the horror which 
I could scarcely hide from my face and 
smiled wearily. "You think this is awful, 
don't you? You should have seen what was 
here last winter before these beautiful bar- 
racks were built. It was January, fearfully 



34 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

cold, and the rain had been incessant for 

days. The Boches were bombarding P 

so hard that every hospital there had to be 
evacuated and we were all brought here, no 
matter what our condition. This place then 
consisted of hospital tents with one small 
stove in the center and no floor but the 
muddy ground under our feet. I was 
brought here along with eighty-two others, 
and we were all placed in a big, round tent, 
some of us on stretchers, some of us rolled 
in blankets, and some of us just in the mud. 
The next morning I was one of seven to be 
taken out alive. Oh, we know what the fel- 
lows have to go through when a big push 
is on, and we know what the necessities and 
comforts sent us from over the water mean 
in such awful times. Tell your American 
friends that, and how grateful we are." 

We were on a hospital tour that morn- 
ing, so although I felt as if I had seen enough 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 35 

pain and blood to last me for the rest of my 
normal life, I did not refuse to go on. We 
stopped at the new little hospital barracks 
for wounded civilians, who were being so 
happily cared for, thanks to the never-failing 

activity of the Countess V . It may 

seem strange that the peasant would rather 
remain in his own little home in the midst 
of his own little fields and garden patch, 
with the shells falling all about him, than to 
pack his cart and move his family to another 
section. Yet it is perfectly natural when 
you stop to think. The whole world to the 
European peasant is the little spot on which 
he was born and has lived. The rest of the 
earth is a great and horrible unknown to 
him. And then, what shall he do? His en- 
tire livelihood depends upon the bit of earth 
he owns. Who is going to give him a garden 
and a house somewhere miles over the hills? 
So it is often only by military force that the 



36 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

peasant can be driven out of range of the 
guns, and meantime every day brings its 
casualties. The pathetic sight of old men 
and old women, little babies, bright-eyed 
boys and girls, enduring the same suffering 
as the soldier, seemed so unnecessary, but yet 
there it was. 

I bought some pretty lace which the chil- 
dren made at a little school nearby this hos- 
pital, and which they sold for the benefit of 
their wounded brothers and sisters. I 
wouldn't have believed such little girls could 
have done it, if I had not seen them at work. 

We returned to the Countess' hospital 
about sundown for tea and a much-needed 
rest from the sight of horrors. That night 
we were guests at the officers' mess. It is 
not often that a woman graces the dinner 
table in this gloomy town, and so everything 
was done to make the occasion festive. There 
was a menu card, an artistic creation, and 



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War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 37 

place cards and two beautiful wild flower 
bouquets for the Countess and myself, and 
the best wine that still remained in the almost 
depleted cellar. After dinner, as usual, we 
talked about nearly everything except war, 
and yet I felt all the time the undercurrent 
of tension. I knew that some part of each 
one's consciousness was ever watchful for 
the shell or aero bomb which might come 
any minute. One of their dearest comrades 
had been killed on the doorstep of this very 
house only a few weeks previous. 

Usually the arrival of enemy aeroplanes 
is announced and every one takes to cover. 
Sometimes it is the custom to ring a bell or 
to blow whistles, and sometimes a boy rides 
through the town on a bicycle sounding a 
horn of peculiar quality, which means the 
aeros are coming. But no aeros came that 
night, and about 10 o'clock we rode through 
the deserted, silent, narrow, little streets 
back to the hospital and to bed. 



OrpJielinatSj P. , May, 1916. 

The next morning we went on a long ride 
over the hills to visit the little Belgian or- 
phans and see how they were being cared 
for on French soil. As there was no mili- 
tary motor available, and as, for the one and 
only time in my war travels, I was unarmed 
with papers to get me across the frontier, we 
decided to do the eighty miles in an ambu- 
lance, where I could hide in the back as we 
whizzed past the familiar sentries. Mile. 

M , in her well-worn khaki suit with the 

Ked Cross badge, sat in front with the chauf- 
feur. Within the ambulance, on the hard 
wooden bench, was I with that wonderful 
hero of Ypres, the Abbe of St. Pierre. What 
a face of strength and poise and thoughtful- 

38 




The Famous Abbe of Ypres 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 39 

ness he had ! To the people of that country- 
he was a saint, specially protected by heaven. 
He seemed to have led a charmed life. He 
was the last to leave the battered ruins of 
the once beautiful Ypres. They say he saved 
even the cats before he would depart, and 
still the longing to return to his beloved 
town came over him so strongly that at times 
his friends had great difficulty in restraining 
him. He loved every stone and he god- 
fathered every poor child of the village. 
Shells have burst all around him, killing 
those at his side, but, by some wonder of 
fate, have left him untouched. His smile 
was a delight, his conversation a charm. 

Along the white, dusty road we flew, for 
we had many miles to cover and several stops 
to make. Every one is familiar with the 
beautiful rolling country of this part of 
France, the cultivated fields, the neat little 
villages, the white ribbon of road between 



40 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

the well-ordered rows of trees. I could not 
resist waving a triumphant salute at the as- 
tonished sentries when they realized they had 
let pass an ambulance with a civilian in it, 
and a woman at that! But the clouds of 
dust hid us from view before they could do 
anything about it. We passed through 
B , a lovely little town way up on a hill- 
top, from which we could look down over 
the distant valley in whose heart the hostile 
lines of trenchmen fought for supremacy. 
We stopped here to leave a message with 
an officer and learned that nearly every one 
in the town was ill with a touch of asphyxiat- 
ing gas. It seemed that the fumes had pene- 
trated this far during the night, but were 
not strong enough to awaken people. So 
they had inhaled unconsciously. Every one 
sleeps with a gas mask at the head of his bed 
in these parts. 

We coasted down the long hill on the 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 41 

other side of the town, glorying in the beauty 
of the extended view before us. How could 
there be anything but happiness in the world 
that brilliant morning! The Abbe and I 
talked of many things and he told me how 
he and the Countess planned and worked to 
get enough money and clothing for the hun- 
dreds of orphans in their care. If only some 
of the discarded but still useful warm cloth- 
ing of my little friends in America could be 
sent! And think of the untold joy some of 
their superfluous toys would give! 

Our first stop was to see the boys, and cer- 
tainly for me it was a unique experience. 
The Abbe announced that a great treat was 
in store for us, as we were to lunch with the 

priests of W , who ran the orphelinat. 

He told me to be sure to ask Father , 

the jolly, fat, old fellow, to sing and recite 
for us. He said it would please him enor- 
mously and would give us untold amuse- 



42 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

merit, and he was right. We entered the 
courtyard of an old stone house, and after 
shaking off several layers of the white dust, 
went in to the bounteous feast prepared in 
our honor. The welcome was simple and 
cordial. We washed our hands in an old tin 
basin and used the coarsest towel I have ever 
seen. I am sure it will never wear out. 
Then we sat down to enough food for twenty 
instead of six, and how they did enjoy it! 

I don't wonder Father was almost as 

broad as he was long, if he enjoyed every 
meal as much as he did this one. He ordered 
up the wine from the cellar, the last precious 
bottle he had carried away from Ypres, and 
then, after much persuasion, he rose at his 
end of the table and in a dear, gentle, cracked 
old voice, mouthing his words so that his 
apparently one remaining front tooth was 
much in evidence, he sang the favorite songs 
of his youth. I am sure they were funny 



War Scenes I Shall Never- Forget 43 

because he laughed at them so heartily him- 
self. 

Luncheon over, we walked to the boys' 
dormitories. How they did love the jolly 
old priest, and how glad they were to see 
the Abbe! From all corners of the court- 
yard they dropped their play or their fight, 
as the case was, and came running with all 
the joy of a pack of little tail-wiggling fox 
terriers, to throw themselves upon the two 
men. Where he carried it, I do not know, 
but the Abbe produced cake after cake of 
chocolate and every boy had a bite. 

The boys are taught all the simple studies 
and always to sing. The Belgian peasant 
children really sing beautifully. Even the 
little tots can take parts. We went up 
through the dormitories. There were closely 
filled rows of cots graduated in size, and 
over the foot of each one the sisters in charge 
had neatly laid out the boy's other suit, for 



44* War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

to-morrow would be Sunday and they would 
all be dressed up. The lavatories consisted 
of wooden benches, again graduated in 
height, with tin basins and towels on them, 
about one to every three boys. It made me 
shiver to think how cold that place must be 
during the long damp winter, but then the 
peasant is used to such hardships. Finally 
we came to the schoolroom, where the older 
boys were already hard at work, learning in 
both Flemish and French. And of all the 
cute sights I ever saw, here happened the 
very cutest. The tiny tots, three and four 
years old, had finished their lunch and their 
playtime, and must have their noonday nap. 
Were they put to bed like ordinary babies? 
Oh, no. They tumbled into the schoolroom, 
their big eyes staring out of their chubby, 
round, little faces, full of wonder as to who 
the strange lady was. Somewhat abashed 
and very quietly they slid along their baby 





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War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 45 

bench, snuggling up to each other as close 
as they could. Then at a word from the 
teacher all the little right arms went up on 
the long bench table in front of them, the 
perfectly round little heads flopped over into 
the crook of the row of little elbows, three 
blinks, and all the little eyelids closed, and 
like peas in a pod they were asleep. How I 
wished for a moving picture of that scene! 

Last we visited the chapel, of which Father 

was so proud. A little musty-smelling 

chapel with a crude figure of the Madonna 
in a high window niche at one end. Father 

had placed above it a pane of blue glass, 

of a blue which turned the sunlight into a 
wonderfully cool, pure color. He said it 
was the emblem of hope to him, and that 
when his heart was heavy behind his cheerful 
smile, he would come in there alone to think 
and to pray. 

We were in no hurry to go, but there was 



46 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

still a long stretch to be covered before we 
reached Wisques, where the girls were 
housed. So we said good-by to Father 

, his priests, and his children. I only 

hope I may see them again some day. 

Our ride was now enlivened by the pres- 
ence of many aeroplanes, friendly ones, 
maneuvering now near the earth, now so 
high that they were almost lost to sight. 
They were probably indulging in prelimi- 
nary exercises before scouting over the Ger- 
man lines. 

Arrived at Wisques, we were welcomed by 
the nuns into the beautiful old chateau, now 
an orphan asylum. The Queen had recently 
paid a visit here and the whole place was 
decorated in her honor with colored papers 
and garlands of leaves and branches. It had 
been a very great and wonderful occasion 
for the motherless little girls. Coffee was 
served us out of a brilhantly shining kettle 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 47 

from the huge old-fashioned stove in the 
great open fireplace. Everything was so 
spotlessly clean! The nuns certainly took 
good care of the children. The girls' dormi- 
tories were neat, here and there brightened 
by a piece of colored cloth or a picture or a 
bit of ribbon. There were only the barest 
necessities, and none too many of them. The 
girls were taught to do the housework and 
to sew, in addition to their regular school 
studies. They were all dressed in black and 
the Mother Superior bemoaned the fact that 
the Abbe simply could not keep them in 
shoes. Several classes were assembled to sing 
for us, Belgian and French songs, and finally 
in my honor the nearest they could come to 
anything American, "God Save the King" 
— at least that was in the "strange lady's" 
language — English. 

I wandered away from the others and out 
of doors into the garden. There were the 



48 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

real babies, most of them just big enough 
to walk. They were digging and playing, 
twenty-five or more of them, in charge of 
a couple of the older girls and one nurse. 
I sat down on a broken stump and tried to 
make love to one of the little boys. He was 
awfully shy at first and would just look at 
me out of his big blue eyes. All of a sudden 
he toddled over to the other side of the yard 
and after him toddled the whole bunch. He 
was certainly a coming leader. In the far 
corner was a perfect carpet of dandelions. 
Each baby picked one or two and, like a 
flock of little chicks, they came tumbling 
back again to present me with the flowers. 
It was too sweet for words and the tears 
came to my eyes. I wanted to hug them all. 
I asked the nurse whether this was a cus- 
tomary performance and she said she had 
never seen them do such a thing before. If 
only all the little war orphans were cared for 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 49 

as well as these in charge of the good Abbe 1 
May money and supplies never fail to come 
to him for this good work. 

The Abbe took us to see the trenches and 
barbed wire entanglements which surround- 
ed the hilltop. Even these many miles be- 
hind the lines they were prepared. Thank 
heaven we feel sure that now these trenches 
will never see blood. 

It was a long ride back, and I am sure 
there were no springs to that ambulance. 
How does a wounded soldier survive the jolt- 
ing even if he is suspended on a stretcher? 
was the question I kept asking myself, for 
I was sore from head to foot. We arrived 
back at the hospital too late for dinner with 
the others and tired enough to go straight 
to bed, but the Countess said I must stay up 
a while and see the "fireworks." So we 
climbed up into the tower, from which we 
had a very extensive view over the not far 



50 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

distant battle line. It is a strange fact that 
in the humdrum routine of war nowadays 
the men stay buried in their holes during the 
daylight, because it is really too dangerous 
to go forward without the protection of 
night. Then when darkness has fallen they 
turn on the artificial light and go at each 
other. In a word, fire balloons rise and blaze 
their glare at intervals unceasingly along 
the whole horizon. You must keep a sharp 
lookout or the enemy will take you by sur- 
prise. And then the flash of the guns and 
the trail of the shells. It looks for all the 
world like a Coney Island display on the 
Fourth of July without the many colors. 



VI 

Depot des Eclopes, May, 1916. 

With Mme. B I went to visit one of 

the military depots around Paiis, where 
every day at sunset hundreds of French sol- 
diers assembled to march away to take their 
places beside their comrades in the trenches. 
Some had been home on leave, some were 
just discharged from hospitals, some had 
been given the privilege of the convalescent, 
and an occasional one was reporting for the 
first time. Once a day those called to return 
duty entrained for the front. During the 
preceding twenty-four hours they had ar- 
rived, singly and in company, from all direc- 
tions, and had made themselves "comfort- 
able" on the rough straw beds provided in 
the depot. They wore patched and faded 

51 



52 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

uniforms, often those of their dead comrades. 
The government had supplied them with 
these uniforms and added what spare cloth- 
ing it could and a few inadequate necessities, 
but no comforts. 

Of course, we did not go empty-handed, 

for Mme. B and her committee saw to 

it that no man went back to the front with- 
out his "comfort packet" — a little package 
containing a warm garment, perhaps a 
sweater, flannel drawers or a shirt, a cap, a 
muffler, socks and half a dozen useful little 
gifts of small value, such as razor, penknife, 
bit of string to tie his shoe, little mirror 
to admire himself in, writing paper, ciga- 
rettes, vermin destroyer, and such like. We 
loaded two motors with these packets and 
reached the depot an hour or so before the 
time for the men's departure. 

It was all most interesting. The sentinels 
at the gate smiled a welcome for Mme. 




Officers of the Balloon Corps at Dinner 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 53 

B and said the boys were expecting her. 

We went into the big, barn-like barracks, 
where blue-coated poilus and kliaki-clothed 
colonials sat or stood about in groups, some- 
times silent, sometimes eai'nestly talking. 
Others rested apart, examining their equip- 
ment and repacking their knapsacks. Others 
slept on the straw, while some were buying 
most unwholesome looking doughnuts and 
consuming them without any attempt at 
chewing. 

The bags of comfort packets were brought 
in and laid on a long table at one end of the 
barracks. Was there a rush and a push to 
be first served? Not a bit of it. With quiet 
interest the men waited to be invited and 
then came forward without elbowing each 
other. Every man received a packet, many 
of which had been made in far-away Amer- 
ica. Just think for a moment what this 
little human touch of kindness meant at 



54 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

such a time. It was not the value of the gift, 
though the articles were often most useful. 
It was the spirit behind it which touched the 
man and not infrequently brought a tear of 
emotion to his eye. He had left home in all 
probability for the last time, for no man 
really expects to return from the trenches 
these days. What a worth-while kind of 
courage this almost commonplace courage of 
the soldier of to-day is ! We need not imag- 
ine that he does not think. He knows what 
this war means to him and his. It is that 
ever-present spirit of simple, unquestioning, 
determined self-sacrifice which verily awes 
one each time it is encountered. 

With the interest of children, the men took 
their packets, saluted their thanks and 
stepped aside to examine the prizes they had 
drawn. It was amusing and pathetic to 
watch them. The seasoned veteran with the 
tired eyes over in the corner heaved an almost 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 55 

audible sigh of satisfaction. He had drawn 
a muffler, just what he needed, and the bit 
of soap and the very handy jack-knife were 
not to be disdained. The boy near him was 
more or less amused by his present. He felt 
too well equipped to need anything, for he 
was going out to beat the Boches for the 
first time. A tough-looking, healthy fellow 
standing by the table opened his parcel and 
drew a rubber poncho. At his side stood a 
pale-faced man with glasses and the unmis- 
takable stamp of education on his face. He 
looked longingly at the poncho and tight- 
ened the muffler around his neck. Then 
after a moment's hesitation he turned to me 
and asked if it would be possible for him to 
have one of those, even if he paid for it. I 
did not know where to find one in the few 
remaining packets, and as I hesitated his 
comrade turned and said, "But you take it, 
my friend. I can get along without it. I 



56 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

have slept in the fields all my life. You be- 
long to the city. Take it and may it bring 
you luck." That is typical of the spii4t of 
the men. 

The packets distributed, there remained 
huge boxes of candy and cigarettes. I took 
the cigarettes and went among the men, talk- 
ing as I offered them. I was so eager to 
understand their point of view that I per- 
mitted myself to ask a rather cruel question. 
*'How do you feel when, like to-day, you 
are going back to the front?" The replies 
were all alike in spirit. "It is our duty!" 
"We do not think of the future, but only to 
do our duty now!" "The Boches must be 
beaten!" "France comes first!" Of course, 
out of the many I here and there received a 
flippant answer, but the majority were sim- 
ple, direct, resigned. 

In one corner three jolly fellows were hav- 
ing a home-made lunch before they left. 
They insisted that I taste it. It was the best 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 57 

sausages in the world that "la femine" had 
made as a parting gift, and wrapped up with 
hard brown bread. The fingers that handled 
it and the knife that cut it were not appetiz- 
ing, but we made gay together. 

I came to a red-fezzed, black-faced son 
of Africa, handsome as a Greek god, neat 
and trim in his khaki uniform three times 
decorated. He must have seen action to have 
acquired three crosses, so I made bold to ask 
him what of all his experiences stood out 
most vividly in his memory. He smiled 
rather tolerantly as he answered that I would 
probably be disappointed when he told me 
that it was the dinner party he and three of 
his comrades had offered to four Germans 
who came during a lull to visit their trench. 
I looked puzzled, so he went on to explain. 
"The trenches were so close together we 
could almost shake hands. It was a pitch 
black night and we heard the Boches com- 



58 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

plaining that they were hungry. We whis- 
pered to them to come over and we would 
give them a treat. It took them a long time 
to get up their courage. Finally we felt 
rather than saw them coming, and suddenly 
they tumbled into our trench. We gave them 
all we had, and how those fellows atel It 
was a joy to see them! And, do you know, 
they just managed to get back to their own 
trench when we had orders to attack!" 

He had hardly finished speaking when the 
bugle sounded the call to fall in. The men 
shouldered their packs, heavy packs they 
looked, with tin cans and paper parcels tied 
on with string. The roll was called, and 
when the last man was marked present the 
bugle sounded again. No boomaladdie pa- 
rade this, with shining boots and brass band. 
Two by two in sloppy formation they 
dragged their well-worn boots along. There 
was a stoop to most shoulders, even to the 



60 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

young ones, but the spirit was all right. I 
studied the faces as they passed and I tried 
to realize where they were going and blindly 
sought to understand why. There was a 
smile of good-by from most and perhaps an 
additional "Merci bien, Madamxe!" Or if 
not a smile, then something that made me 
feel the greatness of each one of these human 
beings, willingly offering himself a sacrifice. 




A Ruined Church on ilie French Front 



VII 

Venetiaj June, 1916. 

Still another front and so very different 
from the others. After an interesting two 
weeks in Rome, where I had business to at- 
tend to for our Committee, I received the 
unexpected but welcome permission to enter 
the Italian war zone. My first stop was 
Bologna, that uniquely beautiful city of 
terra cotta towers and heavily arcaded 
streets. To-day it is one of the big hospital 
centers of Italy, and I walked through miles 
of wards and studied surgical dressings in 
active use in the operating and di^essing 
rooms until I felt as if I could not stand the 
sight of another one. 

By contrast my nine-hour trip in the train 
last night over the mountains was full of 

61 



62 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

the most restful beauty and romance. I 
found a little corner compartment which I 
managed to keep all to myself by the simple 
expedient of pulling down the shades and 
feigning sleep on the sofa when we stopped 
at stations. I left Bologna at six o'clock 
and for two hours feasted my eyes on the 
beauty of the lovely Italian hills in the set- 
ting sunlight. Then the moon came up, big 
and round and calm. After a while we 
stopped at a cross-roads. There was a block 
on the single track ahead. I opened my win- 
dow. Not a sound to be heard. My train 
companions in the other compartments 
seemed to be asleep. It was just so beauti- 
ful, I drank it in. Then in the distance a 
tenor voice broke the stillness with a Nea- 
politan love song. Slowly it came nearer 
and grew louder and sweeter until a figure 
appeared at the top of the road. He came 
on down to the track, singing all the while. 



Wai' Scenes I Shall Never Forget 63 

I never enjoyed a Caruso aria as I did that 
song from the heart. Next came a lumber- 
ing hay-wagon drawn by oxen, a drop in 
the bucket of supplies for the front. Then 
a special dispatch carrier on a motorcycle, 
beastly sound which broke the spell of beauty 
and took me back to the guns. He dis- 
mounted and silenced his machine, as the 
train was blocking the crossing. Two other 
men appeared from somewhere, arm in arm. 
The Italians never sleep and they always 
sing. It was not many minutes before the 
group had gathered together and were giv- 
ing us a concert around the ox cart in the 
moonlight. I sat back in my corner and 
wondered if there really were a war. 

At last we moved on at our usual snail 
pace which is characteristic of the trains in 
the war zone. Also trains seem to be always 
late in the war zone. No matter what time 
I started from a place, I was sure to land 



64 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

at my destination between two and three 
A. M. True enough, about half -past two in 
the morning we drew into the station shed 
at Mestre, the point where all the gray-green 
uniformed soldiers and officers descended to 
return to their posts in the trenches. The 
train would stop some twenty minutes before 
it went on to Venice, so I got out on the 
platform, an object of interest to the many 
soldiers, as I was noticeably a civilian, a for- 
eigner and a woman. 

Almost simultaneous with our arrival a 
hospital train drew slowly into the station 
on the track next to ours. It came from the 
other direction. I stood in the center of 
the platform and looked at my train on the 
right. Many of the coaches were still filled 
with groups singing and gay, buying fruit 
and cheap wine from the shrill- voiced young- 
sters who ran up and down the platform 
with their wares. Officers of importance 
lounged about, non-coms ran the length of 




Shell Explosion 




Tent Hospital in the Dolomites 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 65 

the train giving orders. I looked to the left, 
where huge Red Crosses stamped the sides 
of the light-truck, third-class carriages filled 
with enduring, pain-racked human beings. 
Here and there glued to the window was 
a bandaged head with two eyes looking out 
of hollow black-rimmed holes. The band- 
ages were nearly always stained red. Even 
though the hospital car was but very dimly 
lighted, thanks to the ever-present aeroplane, 
I could see the feverish ones tossing about 
on their stretchers, disclosing bloody band- 
ages on arm or leg or body as the case 
might be. As I carried a special permit to 
visit any military hospital or dressing station 
in Italy, I climbed into the train and walked 
through half a dozen cars. How I wished 
I had a hundred or so odd-sized little cush- 
ions with me! What a comfort they would 
have been to those men who yesterday did 
their duty to the end, and who would now 
for three or four days travel unwashed, their 



66 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

mud-caked uniforms still on them, in most 
cases their dressings unchanged, through the 
blistering heat of the Italian summer, to their 
destination in Rome. I tried to say a cheer- 
ful word here and there in my best Italian, 
but somehow it seemed so futile. There they 
lay through no fault of their own, alone and 
suffering hour after hour, and there on the 
other track, with courage undaunted by this 
sight, hundreds more were going north to 
take their turn. The physical side of war 
may be hell, but in the moral side there is 
certainly some kind of divinity. 

The engine of my train whistled and I 
hopped back into the carriage. In ten min- 
utes we had crossed the lagoon and were in 
Venice. Venice again by full moon. Years 
ago I arrived at this very station at midnight 
when the moon was full. Life and bustle 
were then everywhere, and the gay-lanterned 
gondolas were gliding up and down the 
Grand Canal with music and song in full 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 67 

blast. This night the same full moon shone 
down, but the silence and lonesomeness were 
overwhelming. After some waiting an old 
man managed to find me a gondola. I got 
into it with my little handbag and heavy 
coat, and for three-quarters of an hour we 
moved slowly and silently up the Grand 
Canal, where every window in the medieval 
palaces was barred and shuttered, and every 
branch canal and narrow passage deathlike 
in its stillness. Not a voice in the Venice 
one thinks of as always awake. Not a sign 
of life did I see except the aero patrol on 
the tops of several of the high buildings, their 
guns pointed skyward, ready for action. 

When we reached the Hotel D all was 

barred and closed. The old, stooped-back 
porter, who was finally aroused by the loud 
pounding of the gondolier, looked as though 
he had seen a ghost when he opened the door 
to let in a woman traveler in Venice in war 
time at three o'clock in the morning. 



VIII 

Italian Fronts June, 1916. 
I CAME down from the highest mountain 
peaks on all the Italian front, the Dolomites, 

where General di R sent me in his motor 

to the very peak next to one occupied by 
the Austrian guns. For the first and only 
time in my travels I was on soil conquered 
from the enemy. We could easily see the 
position of their guns through the glasses, 
and we were at great pains to hide the motor 
behind a screen of trees out of sight of those 
evil guns. I simply cannot describe the pic- 
turesqueness of that two-hundred-mile ride 
through one of the most beautiful mountain 
sections in Europe, over magnificent new 
roads, now the pathway for man, beast and 
food on the way up to the unbelievable war 

68 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 09 

among the snowcaps. We passed through 
all kinds of camps, and I had excellent op- 
portunity to realize the terrific difficulties of 
this front. 

The following day we motored down out 
of the hills and into the flatter country be- 
hind the front where the Austrians had for 
the moment broken through. I was honored 

by being taken by the Duchesse d'A to 

visit a front line hospital here. In a little 
village the stone schoolhouse had been turned 
into a temporary ambulance. A shell had 
fallen in the yard the day before, so the head 
surgeon feared they might be driven back 
any moment. Think what that means when 
you already have two hundred freshly 
wounded men in a place that can only ac- 
commodate a hundred and fifty, and ambu- 
lances are arriving every half hour with 
more. In the operating room six naked men, 
or what remained of them, lay on six differ- 



70 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

ent dressing tables, each with a red hole or 
stump out of which the doctor was pulling 
red gauze J or into which he was poking white 
gauze. For over thirty-six hours without 
rest these surgeons had been on duty. Is 
it any wonder that they could not be over- 
gentle, that they were sometimes blind to 
the writhing of their victims, or deaf to their 
groans and shrieks! That is a sight I can 
never forget and I left it as quickly as I 
could, weak in the knees, and glad to hear 
the door slam behind me. 

The next room we entered was somewhat 
less awful. Iron cots were crowded into it 
as close as you could pack them, with a 
human wreck in each one. They were what 
are known as the "Grands Blesses," that is, 
the men most dangerously wounded. I 
won't describe them, though the picture will 
never become indistinct. As the Princess 
entered every hand that had the strength to 



War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 71 

move attempted a salute. She went about, 
speaking a kind word to each one and tying 
a little tin medal with the colors of Italy on 
their wrists. The two women who were tak- 
ing care of these two hundred or more men 
told me they were not quite sure whether it 
was two or three days since they had gone 
to bed. They were ladies who before the 
war had never known what manual labor 
meant. "There come moments like this," 
they said, "and then somehow we seem to 
find the strength, but it is awfully hard on 
the surgeons. Besides it's so difficult to keep 
the men clean and supplied with what they 
should have even as bare necessities. We 
hate to see them in dirty, blood-stained linen, 
but what can we do? Look I there come two 
more ambulances." And all the time they 
were working while they talked. 

Oh I we at home, who are often bored by 
the daily headlines telling of trenches taken 



72 War Scenes I Shall Never Forget 

and lost, let us stop, think and imagine! 
What is our responsibility and how do we 
meet it? Is there really one of us with a 
heart and mind who dares to let twenty-four 
hours pass without dropping his mite of 
time, sympathy or money into the brave hand 
of suffering Europe! Men, women and 
children, they need us! If we do all we 
can, then we are not doing half enough! 
The horror of their suffering is hideous! 
The magnificence of their sacrifice is 
sublime! 



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